What do we mean by "All topics of interest to the LGBT community"?

[Ms. Toad]

Last edited Sun Dec 11, 2011, 09:29 PM - Edit history (1)

My last thread in this group was locked as being "off topic." The topic of discussion was expressly about the new jury system and the treatment of the LGBT community within DU.

The thread garnered:
the participation of 18 different individuals in the discussion
the recommendation of 5 individuals (and I was not one of them)
55 contributions to the conversation (not counting the locking post)
The closest "competing" thread had 46 contributions - and most others had fewer than a dozen. A quasi-random check of the other threads showed only a handful of participants in each - and an average of a little more than 2 recs.

I also have since received communication from another member of this group expressing disbelief that anyone could consider off topic in a group which welcomes "all topics of interest to the LGBT community" a discussion about the possibility that members of DU juries might not understand the importance of some issues to the LGBT community.

I was told by the locking host that the thread was alerted on by "more than one individual" - so obviously more than one person thought the topic was not of interest to the LGBT community.

So - the context is a discussion expressly about LGBT community's engagement in and with DU when the objective stats indicate there is a lot of interest within the DU LGBT community in the topic - BUT there are competing alerts by members of the DU LGBT group that the topic is not of interest to the LGBT community. Within that context, what standards do we want the host to apply (and perhaps what "reality check" would we want the host to engage in) in making the decision as to whether the topic is of interest to the LGBT community? (The question is not, as I understand it, whether or not the thread should be locked. Locking is merely a consequence which follows the decision that the discussion is off topic - it is not, at least as I understand it, an independent tool for the hosts to use to shut down threads for any other reason.

This is not, by the way, an appeal to garner support to open the locked thread. What concerns me is that labeling a discussion about how the LGBT community is treated within DU as "off topic" looks to me like a train wreck in the works (as well as seriously burnt out hosts who are constantly going to be called on to defend their decisions against a pretty fuzzy standard). My behind the scenes discussions with HillWilliam leaves me with respect for the integrity with which he tried to apply the standards in this new world as the first guinea pig host (including taking steps he had no formal obligation to take). The explanations of why the thread was locked, however, leave me with some apprehension that the decision was based not on whether the thread topic was inconsistent with the group purpose - but on whether the thread should be locked for other reasons (the reasons I was given were that the issue is broader than the DU LGBT group can resolve, the question is speculative at this point, and the opinion of the hosts consulted is that it would be better to wait and see how the new jury system plays out).

So this is a suggestion that perhaps we ought to talk about the question of how a host in the LGBT group determines a discussion is not one which is of interest to the LGBT community while there is a relatively neutral but concrete example to think about.

[xchrom]

1. I really want to see you contribute more to DU.

I have fond and empathetic feelings for a lot of things you post.

But there are rules and this - as we
Learned from the purge - is not our house.

It's a 'nice' house but not our house.

I would rather see 'us' stay together rather than that purge happen again.

That being said - I voted to close the original thread - i would vote to let this stand.

[William769]

2. Agreed.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Did you vote to close the thread -

Last edited Sun Dec 11, 2011, 10:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Or that the discussion was not of interest to the LGBT community?

I believe the question the hosts have to answer in order to lock a thread is the latter (does it fall outside the purpose of the LGBT group). That is a far narrower question than whether the thread should be closed. While the hosts might think it best to close the thread for any number of reasons, my understanding is that the only valid reason for the hosts to close a thread, which otherwise follows the DU rules, is if the answer to the latter question is that the discussion topic is not of interest to the LGBT community.

If you do believe the discussion is not of interest to the LGBT community, I would like to understand why you believe that - because it just doesn't match what I saw happening in the thread.

For purposes of this thread, I don't actually need you to answer them publicly - or to me - but that is the question I believe hosts should be able to answer before locking a thread, and I believe giving that explanation to the thread poster would ultimately make less work for the hosts.

(On reviewing the options open to the hosts, I see that locking a thread without explanation is also permitted - that would have been a better option in this case. I would not personally have objected to a lock without an explanation (followed by the PM explanation I was given when I petitioned to remove the lock). I actually suggested to HillWilliam removing the "off topic" explanation and adding a comment pointing to the discussion I had started in the Help and metadata forum. I do - as a general matter, though - believe that unfettered ability to lock posts is an option that will likely lead to rapid host burn out if we don't provide some concrete guidance (and support for hosts exercising that option).)

[xchrom]

13. I said in my reply I voted to close it.

There are rules to operate under & it's not the same w/ the mods.

1st is we are supposed to take certain issues to meta.

2nd - the hosts are lgbtiq folk.

3rd - none of us want another purge.

So, what are you driving at here?

Now I'm feeling uncomfortable.

[Ms. Toad]

17. My understanding in DU3

is that the rules are simple. A thread may be locked because it is "off topic." (And if you look in the locking message - that is what it says - it was locked because it was off topic.) That says to me that you started with the question, "Is the discussion of interest to the LGBT community?" (That is the purpose of the group).

The locking statement says that HillWilliam decided it was not of interest (and via the petition process that the rest of you reached the same conclusions - the answer is "No."

Based on the broad participation in the discussion (more than in any other thread) by the LGBT community, I was having difficulty understanding how you reached the conclusion that it was not of interest to the LGBT community. I asked for a clear statement of why the discussion is not of interest to the LGBT community, and have not been given an answer. (I have been given other explanations about why it might not be good to have this discussion now - but the thread was not locked for those reasons - and it isn't clear to me that they even could be within the rules of DU3.)

If my opinion is so different from the hosts about what is of interest to the LGBT community, then we really need some guidelines to help the hosts make decisions that aren't just going to make everyone angry because they seem so arbitrary.

On the other hand - if that question was never answered, perhaps it is just clearer guidelines that are needed as to the steps to go through before locking a thread for being "off topic."

[Fearless]

18. A better description of what the LGBT forum should be for may be of help as well...

The current one is very very vague... which is good, I think. But in practice, some elaboration of just how broad it is may be helpful.

[Ms. Toad]

21. Maybe I can be a bit clearer

I am not trying to make you feel uncomfortable - I see this as a learning process, using my locked thread as a tool. No hard feelings on my part, and no alterior motive. My discussions behind the scene with HillWilliam were friendly and I am convinced that all of you were acting with the best of intentions for the group in a situation in which everyone was dealing with completely new rules, everyone is a volunteer without unlimited quantities of time to spend learning the rules, and you made the best decision you could to try to avoid the problems of DU2.

What I am driving at is getting clear about what the rules say should happen, what did happen, and how to create some guidelines (or tweak our purpose) so that when the new host(s) is chosen she has better guidelines to act on - and to back her up for the actions she takes so she doesn't burn out immediately because of all the heat that squabbling about whether her actions were legitimate might create.

So - from Skinner's journal about group hosts: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=journals&uid=100801

"As I've said many times, Forum Hosts can do only one thing: lock a discussion thread that goes against the Statement of Purpose of a particular forum. . . . In short: On DU2 a thread can be locked for any reason or no reason at all . . .On DU3, the Forum Hosts can't pull some random rule out of their backside to justify locking anything. They get only ONE rule to enforce: The Statement of Purpose of their forum. That's it. If they lock for any other reason they have overstepped their authority.

So, in practice, you could throw up the most offensive, most inflammatory piece of garbage, and if it was on-topic for the forum the Host could not legitimately lock it. Now, it would likely get alerted as a community standards violation, but that goes to the randomly-selected jury -- not the Hosts.

From the Community Moderating System: (http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=modsystem )
Group Hosts perform a similar role to forum Hosts, but they have additional powers. 1) They can lock threads which they believe violate their group's stated purpose; 2) they can pin threads to the top of their group; 3) they can block out members whom they believe are not adhering to their group's purpose; 4) they can make other members Hosts of their group; and 5) they can remove any Host of their group that became a Host after they did.

Now back to me

So - based on your post (and on the comments HillWilliam made to me in our behind the scenes conversations), it seems to me that you didn't really decide whether the topic of the discussion I started was of interest to the LGBT community - what you (collectively) decided was the thread should be locked. Perhaps for good reasons (and certainly with your hearts in the right place for this group) - but not for the one reason that DU3 allows a host to lock a thread.

Maybe we need to change the purpose of the group (and I don't know if we can, or how, we do that) - it may be better not to discuss certain things for a while. If that is the case, maybe we can change our purpose to "all topics of interest to the LGBT community except" and add a list of topics that we, collectively, think we shouldn't be talking about - at least until feelings mend, even though they are of interest to the LGBT community. Speculation about how this new system in DU3 might impact members of this group might be one of those topics.

What I am hoping by this subthread to do is clarify the steps that ought to be taken before a thread is locked, and the reason a thread can be locked, so that when a more heated topic comes along and a thread is locked, the hosts can easily point to our statement of purpose and say, "See - you were discussing X, and X is not a legitimate topic to discuss because it says so right here in our statement of purpose."

Or - in the alternative - we might affirm that we really do want to be able to discuss anything of interest to the LGBT community here, even if having some of those discussions right now make us uncomfortable.

[yardwork]

3. There seems to be sensitivity right now to any perceived criticism of DU3. I'm taking a wait and see

approach. I would not have voted to close your earlier thread, but clearly some LGBTQ DUers were uncomfortable with it. I'm guessing that they felt that the thread might be anticipating trouble, and in so doing, stirring up trouble. Maybe a better strategy for those of us wondering how this new system will play out is to wait until trouble arises and then see how well the new system works.

If, after a month or two, we're getting a lot of insensitive or even bigoted posts ignored by juries, then we can talk about it.

Personally, I've often felt that the problems on DU arose from too much moderation rather than too little. Posts that were obviously homophobic were allowed to stay while those of us who attempted to "educate" the poster got moderated. Trolls played here for years while many of us were banned for practically nothing. In recent years I became convinced that the majority of mods and admins were more clueless about gay rights than the average DUer. Yes, I said that and I stand by it.

This new system may work better than we think. If not, we're probably no worse off than before.

[Ms. Toad]

4. I agree that is why the thread was closed

And that is precisely my concern.

But, assuming that I am wrong and those running the show really do believe it off topic, we need to be clearer about the purpose of the group. "Of interest to the LGBT community" is a pretty broad purpose.

If our hosts do not have clear guidelines about how to handle the disparate views of whether a topic is or is not of interest to the LGBT community we are going to burn out hosts out very quickly.

Authors will, as I did, correspond with the locking host asking for explanations. That involved a considerable amount of HillWilliam's time and mine, and that of the other hosts consulted.

I am in process/structure building mode right now - it is not a substantive topic in which I am emotionally invested. My reaction, when I discovered my thread was locked, was Huh? How on earth is a thread talking about the treatment of LGBT DUers off topic in the DU LGBT group? That is still my reaction.

Had this been a contentious issue within in our community, and the subject of a robust substantive discussion that was locked because of an alert (or more than one) by someone who found the discussion uncomfortable, I suspect the discussions (in addition to just being time consuming) would not have been pretty.

Our hosts need to be able to clearly articulate why a topic is not of interest to the LGBT community (i.e. off topic) - particularly when there is broad participation in a thread that is expressly about our community. If we don't give them the tools to do that, we are leaving them vulnerable to allegations of playing favorites, closing threads based on the host's level of comfort with challenging discussions, etc.

Tools might include:
Narrowing - or better articulating - the purpose of the group

Providing a list of the kinds of topics which are of interest to the LGBT community

Providing a list of the kinds of topics that are not of interest to the LGBT community

Carving out discussions from the purpose that we decide (preferably as a group) are not in our best interest to have right now - and identifying them as carve-outs from the purpose in the statement of purpose.

Setting out guidelines about what do when there is a clear public expression of interest in an LGBT specific topic (making the discussion clearly within the purpose of the group) but a private expression of disinterest (the alert(s))

Expressly permitting the host to lock threads for reasons other than being off topic (and to be able to give that different reason in the public locking explanations)

[yardwork]

5. It's not clear to me who made the decision to lock and how many were involved in the discussion.

Right now, when I click on "about this group" to see a list of hosts, I'm seeing a message stating that there are no hosts. In other threads I see that some people have volunteered to be hosts, but I don't know how many others have joined.

We need to know who our hosts are.

[DURHAM D]

6. Totally agree.

I am currently very confused.

I just noticed that the prior fight over the blocked poster has already started on DU3. Its just sad and so damn useless.

[Ms. Toad]

10. It takes a bit to get used to.

I've been gone a while, but bopped in to see a new space was in the works and was hopeful it would improve things so I was inclined to come back.

Instead of entering the fray in DU2, I came right over here. My personal jury is still out as to the overall impact. I like the jury system for general questions of civility, but it scares the bejeebers out of me when it comes to questions about insults to our community - and I had the audacity to say it in a thread, which was locked for being off topic (i.e. not of interest to members of this community).

[Ms. Toad]

8. Right now I don't believe there are any.

HillWilliam was the host who locked the thread. He locked it in consultation with other hosts (it wasn't clear to me whether they were other hosts of this group - or other hosts of other groups). I have had several good exchanges with him about my thread. When I sent a follow-up note, he told me that currently we have no host.

I do not believe he was required to consult with anyone, but do I appreciate that he chose not to make the decision alone. That is a better practice, in my opinion.

[yardwork]

9. HillWilliam is a great guy and I have total trust in him, but I don't know what is going on.

I've stated why I think your thread was locked, and as you point out, it's not the reason that was given in the locking message. The reason give doesn't make a lot of sense to me - I'm in agreement with your questions about that, too.

[William769]

11. When we went live at all hosts were removed.

[Ms. Toad]

12. Which is a bit odd

Losing hosts who have at least a few days worth of clues, to return to the Wild West!

[Fearless]

14. That's a good question! I think that the problem is that a lot is left up to descretion...

Which means that one jury would vote one way and one another. There are no concrete rules per sey and what is sometimes acceptable may not be on a given day to a given jury. Hosts are the same way. Personally, I think that your original thread should have stayed open. It was a discussion of a LGBTQ issue.


Looks like we've got a lot of kinks to work out.

[Pab Sungenis]

15. It wasn't the old system that was broken.

It was the people who were abusing it. Now we have a new system a lot more open to abuse. Hopefully the "hosts" can balance things out.

[Fearless]

16. In theory yes, but...

There is a "head host". The number 1 host has ultimate authority on who is a host and who isn't. It's helpful because there are more people per group "moderating", but when personal conflicts or personal issues come up, problems will arise.

We need to come together as a group and make meaningful choices without making it personal. At this point, looking around the group, I don't see it happening. I mean that I don't think we are capable of making a choice that will not hurt our members as a whole regardless of which people are chosen.

[Ms. Toad]

19. Discretion is the challenge

That is why I was suggesting that we use this concrete example to try to sort out what we really mean when we say a thread is "off topic."

Assuming the host(s) really meant it was off topic, you and I judge what is of interest to the LGBT community very differently than the hosts - and whether we like a narrower view or a broader view of the purpose of this group, there will be a lot fewer hurt feelings if we set out some guidelines to remove some of the discretion from the analysis.

In my opinion, whether my thread was of interest to the LGBT community was not even a close question. Just look at the thread stats up through the time it was locked. We'll never take all the discretion out, but we ought to at least be able to reach guidelines that say, for example: If treatment of the LBGT community within DU is the subject of the thread, it is within the purpose of the group and will not be locked because it is off topic. If we can't say that - then I think we need a narrower statement of purpose.

On the other hand, those ruby shoes....if interest to the LGBT community???. I'm 'bout to go alert on them...(just kidding).

[Fearless]

20. Indeed. For instance...

What is the method set in place which monitors the hosts from abusing the "off topic" choice? It's not to say that hosts will abuse their powers or that anyone did in your or any case so far, but that there HAS to be something in place as a check to balance out their power over the group.

Sitting here I was thinking and trying to figure out a way to do that. The only thing I can come up with is a recommendation based system. It would be very easy to create in theory. Attach to the hosts a "recommendation function". The host with the most recommendations gets the #1 host position... and downward from there. And it's ongoing and permanent. If a group member later chooses that he/she/etc. doesn't like the host anymore because of a decision... they have the power to take away their recommendation thus potentially lowering the host's rank or perhaps if below a certain number... removing them entirely as a host. It would all be automated and the Admins never have to touch it again. The group will be run by the elected hosts perpetually.


Well that's the best I've got. What do you think?